Anxiety and intuition

Creative People, Anxiety and Intuition
Something I see often with the creative people that I work with is an association between their creativity and anxiety.  Specifically I mean worrying, dread, fear of uncertainty and about the future.  There are some simple aspects of the creative personality that contribute to this, and one of these is the creative personality trait of intuition. 
Creative people are usually highly intuitive.  By intuitive I mean they have a high capacity to see the potential in things.  A common test of creativity in psychology is the “paperclip test” where participants are asked to list how many things you can use a paperclip for- and the quantity and variety of uses is said to correlate with higher creativity.  This is just one was to illustrate the quality of intuition in creatives.  We have a questioning, investigative nature, and are looking for the potential in things all around us. 

What can happen to this intuition is it becomes impacted by our mental and emotional state.  In other words, if we are highly tired, exhausted, frightened, sad and so forth, our intuitive capacity begins to make associations that are less productive are useful.  Instead of seeing positive potential, we begin to see risks and fears.  We make negative predictions. We follow pessimistic thought distortions. We begin to worry.  

The antidote to this is really quite simple: 

1)  Educate yourself that your creative personality is intuitive and accept that this powerful intuition is impacted by your state of being.  

2) When you find yourself negatively predicting the future, anxious and worrying, stop and ask yourself what unmet needs do you have? What in your life is causing you to be stressed, sad or fearful?  

3) Meet those unmet needs! 

4) Engage in grounding activities.  Whenever you find yourself caught up in racing thoughts and worries, your best way to combat that is to bring yourself from the intellectualizing into the present moment and sensory experiences. 

5) When you are fully grounded, and have met the unmet needs, send your intuition back out to reevaluate the positive potential in the situation. 

So, Creative People, you are intuitive. It might make you anxiety prone. But it is all ok.  Try some tips and come sit on my couch to work more deeply on using your personality strengths to create your best life.

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